Hi all,
After reading your reflection on the December session, I have made some decisions about where we will go for the next two sessions.
I agree that inquiry is an incredibly important piece, especially for science teachers. I'll devote at least half a day to that process. I will also provide you with a couple of lesson plan templates that you could use to make sure that your lessons are more inquiry-based and less teacher-driven. No one will be successful, yourself or your students, if you plunge headlong into full inquiry lessons right away. Hopefully the session on Valentines' Day will give you some place to start. Remember it's new to the kids as well!
Here is a link to 3 articles. Choose one to read and comment on prior to the next session:
http://www.brynmawr.edu/biology/franklin/InquiryBasedScience.html
http://www.exploratorium.edu/ifi/resources/classroom/inquiry_based.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry-based_science
Chris, don't forget the chocolates!! :)
I will also help you look at blogs and wikis, although I might not get to that at the next session. I will give you someplace to start looking at exemplars of classroom use of these tools for the final session.
See you in a month!!
Martha
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3 comments:
The articles were short and I had a few minutes, so I read all three. I would like to see more inquiry used in science education. I don't think that inquiry is the only way to teach science, but I would love to see each grade level do one major investigation using inquiry each year. I think that structured inquiry is the perhaps best, given time restraints and high-stakes testing. That way, students get the benefits of choosing and owning the problem, but the teacher has some control over the subject matter. I can see how pure inquiry could result in scientific "play", while students learn best when they are aware of the schema in which their investigation falls.
I have read articles on inquiry based science before and feel that inquiry is a great component to add to methods of teaching science. I still feel that total inquiry based learning may be difficult due to the amount of material we are required to cover. I feel that kids get a lot from inquiry based learning and really enjoy the practice. More inquiry based would really be a plus if we want our students to be more scientific in their approach to science.
Inquiry based science is really not a new concept just new jargon...we used to call it problem solving which when I was in science classes was more frequently practiced (and it does not need to be an experiment).
The article Inquiry Based Science...What does it look like? not very usefull in terms of how to conduct/introduce an inquiry based lesson...I would love for my students to look forward to doing science, exhibit curiosity and ponder observations and questions...instead, when I present them with a problem,their response is a grunt...do we have to think?
I do agree with both Ricia and Chris in that we do need to be persistent and offer more opportunities to do probelmsolving/inquiry , but it has to be introduced at a basic level in the lower grades every year and become more sophisticated as they progress up in grade level. Introducing it in the junior high it will take too much time just to guide them til they finally get it. And let us not forget that to ask questions students have to have a basic knowledge of the concepts and terms(since science is a concept/knowledge driven subject not just skills) otherwise it may go in the direction of Language Arts when the focus was on creativity and all other aspects of language were ignored.
Sabina
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